The present invention relates to splicing apparatus, and more particularly, to an apparatus which may be utilized to repair damaged magnetic tape in a video cassette.
A typical video cassette comprises a length of magnetic tape wound between a pair of reels rotatably supported inside a rectangular case. The case has a spring biased door along one side edge which swings open when the cassette is inserted into a video recorder. This exposes a segment of the tape which extends between the reels for engagement by a magnetic head. The recorder drives the reels to propel the tape past the head. Electronic circuitry within the recorder either magnetically encodes program information on the tape or reads program information from the tape for display on a television set connected to the recorder.
Occassionally, mechanical malfunctions in the cassette or in the drive mechanisms of the video recorder can cause the tape to break or to be mutilated. In such cases, in order to save the cassette, it is necessary to splice the tape. This requires that any wrinkled portions be removed and that the two cut ends be rejoined. The ends must be rejoined in proper alignment in order to insure proper feeding of the tape through the video recorder when the cassette is reused. This requires that the two ends be joined in a straight line. Furthermore, the end edges should abut one another. Splicing tabs are commercially available forjoining the ends. They consist of an adhesive sheet having the same width as the magnetic tape and having a pair of folded backing sheets which may be peeled away to facilitate adhering the adhesive sheet to the tape.
Splicing the magnetic tape of a video cassette manually can be a tedious job. First of all, the spring biased door of the cassette must be held back in some manner to expose the segment of the tape which extends between the reels. Next, the tape must be grasped and pulled from the feed openings of the cassette. If the tape is not broken, but has a mutilated segment over which a considerable length of good tape has been wound, then it may be necessary to pull a large amount of tape from the cassette. In order to prevent the good tape which is pulled from the cassette from being damaged or being in the way, it must be rewound on the other reel. This may require the user to insert a pencil or other implement into one of the hubs of the cassette so that that reel can be wound to take up the slack.
In the case of a broken tape, or a tape having a wrinkled segment, the tape must be cut in two locations. This is typically done using a pair of scissors. Tape is usually spliced at an angle so the cuts must be made at an angle. If the angles of the two cuts are not exactly the same, then the ends of the tape cannot be precisely abutted. The resulting gap between the tape ends when the tape is adhesively joined leads to a loss in program information during recording and a resulting noise during playback. Once the two cuts have been manually made, the two ends of the tape must be aligned in a straight line and held in this position so that the splicing tab can be applied to join the ends. This can be a difficult and exasperating problem when attempted manually.
Another problem which arises in manually splicing magnetic tape of a video cassette is that the adhesive sheet of the splicing tab should be adhered to the nonrecording side of the tape. This can be overlooked by a person during the manual repair process. When the adhesive sheet is on the recording side of the tape, there is a loss of program information during recording, and a resulting loss of signal during playback.
In the past, a wide variety of apparatus have been provided for splicing motion picture film, magnetic tape and other reel wound webs. Such apparatus have included motor or manually driven feed and take-up reels as well as tracks to guide the tape and clamp the ends in position for splicing. However, the inventor is not aware of any splicing apparatus which has been developed in the past which is specifically adapted for splicing magnetic tape in video cassettes.